Podcast: Strait of Hormuz Chaos, TSCA Reform and More — March 2026 in Chemical Processing

Welcome to Distilled News for March 2026. I'm Jonathan Katz with the top stories trending on ChemicalProcessing.com.

The Iran war tops this month's news. As Tribune Content Agency reported on ChemicalProcessing.com, the conflict has caused shipping through the Strait of Hormuz to virtually collapse due to Iranian attacks on commercial vessels. The German Chemical Industry Association warned of growing concerns about serious shortages of raw materials including ammonia, phosphate, helium and sulfur, with soaring prices and uncertainty pushing many businesses to their limits.

A few days earlier, I sat down with Eric Byer, CEO of the Alliance for Chemical Distribution, to talk about how the conflict is hitting chemical distributors. Byer said the situation is eerily similar to the uncertainty the industry faced during COVID.

Eric Byer: “It's eerily like COVID, where the surcharges that are being thrown at our guys from the steamship lines are right in line with what they did during COVID.

We’re seeing now $7,000 surcharges on containers that must be moved from where they are now, potentially going through the Red Sea to alternative routes. We're sure we're going to see blank sailing thrown out there soon, but the carriers are very, very good at adding surcharges in all routes, not those that are just affected by the traffic flow through the Middle East. We're paying real close attention to those types of things because I think we can control that to some degree by letting the regulatory folks know that this is happening and have those folks weigh in with those carriers to say, "What are you doing here?" 

Turning now to chemical safety regulation. At a March 4 Senate hearing, industry experts and GOP lawmakers backed proposed reforms to the Toxic Substances Control Act, but not everyone agrees the draft gets it right.

Supporters argue the current review process is too slow, too broad and puts the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage. David Isaacs of the Semiconductor Industry Association said delays in approving new chemicals are hampering innovation at the leading edge of semiconductor manufacturing. The draft addresses this, in part by establishing four review tiers, so lower-risk or well-understood chemicals can move through the process faster while higher-risk substances get more scrutiny. Supporters also like a provision that would base risk assessments on actual conditions of use rather than applying a blanket determination across every possible use of a chemical. Here's what Isaacs told the committee:

“Our industry is very competitive, and the United States is in a global race for attracting investments in our industry,” said Isaacs in response to a question by Republican Sen. John Curtis from Utah. “And having more certainty and predictability with regard to being able to introduce new substances into the processes, particularly at the leading edge, the most advanced processes, is very important.”

But Michal Freedhoff of Holland & Knight, a key architect of the 2016 Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act, raised serious concerns. She warned that some provisions could allow chemicals to reach the market with no EPA review at all — including language that would deem certain new chemicals equivalent to ones already on the TSCA inventory, bypassing the review process entirely. She also argued that new mandates in the draft are simply unworkable given that the EPA has lost roughly 25% of its staff over the past year, including one-third of the lawyers supporting chemical safety work.

TSCA fee authority accounts for about 25% of EPA's new chemicals review funding. It’s set to expire Sept. 30.

As Tribune Content Agency reported on March 16, the Trump administration moved to roll back Biden-era limits on emissions of ethylene oxide, a cancer-causing chemical widely used to sterilize medical devices. The EPA said repealing the rules would safeguard the supply of essential medical equipment, saving companies an estimated $630 million over 20 years. But critics argue the rollback will expose communities near sterilization facilities to preventable cancer risks. The proposal now heads into a 45-day public comment period. A final decision is expected some time this year.

On the research front, scientists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated a solar-powered method for olefin epoxidation that could reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions in chemical manufacturing. Olefin epoxidation produces epoxides used in textiles, plastics and pharmaceuticals. The process uses light-assisted electrochemistry to activate water under milder conditions, replacing the high-temperature peroxide-based methods used today. The researchers said scaling the process will require replacing laboratory lasers with energy-efficient light sources and engineering larger electrolyzer systems suitable for industrial throughput.

And finally, a note about eChem Expo 2026, taking place April 8-9 at the MeadowView Conference Resort in Kingsport, Tennessee. The conference features more than 20 hours of accredited education across eight technical tracks, covering everything from operational excellence and industrial AI to environmental health and safety compliance. Nearly 150 exhibitors will also be on hand. I'll be attending and reporting on key discussions and technology developments from the show.

This is a particularly meaningful event for us here at Chemical Processing. Our parent company, EndeavorB2B, acquired eChem Expo from EcoChem Strategies in August 2025. Originally launched in October 2000 in partnership with Eastman Chemical Company, the expo is a biennial event, and we're proud to carry it forward.

That wraps up this month's top stories from ChemicalProcessing.com. Stay informed on the stories that matter most to the chemical processing industry. I'm Jonathan Katz, and this has been Distilled News.